District 5 Diary

Friday, September 21, 2012

No exception for Islam

The Sunday Chronicle, with its finger to the wind, published an op-ed by a Muslim who insists that an exception to First Amendment freedoms should be made for Islam. No dice, pal!

Of the major superstitions, Islam is a Johnny-come-lately, originating hundreds of years after both Judaism and Christianity. Islam is inviting mockery---even deserves to be mocked---because of the violent, foaming-at-the-mouth behavior of many of its adherents.

Good to see that Charlie Hebdo, a more aggressive, French version of The Onion, is hammering Islam and Muhammad in its current issue. The French government is so intimidated by the Muslim fanatics that it's shutting down!

The Daily Beast also thinks there should be a moratorium on free speech:

We get that it’s satire, but now is really not the time. Weekly satirical Charlie Hebdo has published an issue mocking the Prophet Muhammad, prompting France to shutter its embassies and schools in 20 countries. The magazine’s cover depicts an Orthodox Jew pushing a wheelchair-bound man in a turban. Not bad? Well, inside, there are illustrations of the prophet naked.

Wrong! This is exactly the time to exercise our constitutional right to mock everyone and everything. Here's one of the Hebdo cartoons the Beast is worried about:

I am no fan of Romney’s, and I would find the prospect of his presidency risible if it were not so depressing, but he did accurately detect the first bleats of fear in the Obama administration’s reaction to this crisis. Romney got the timing of events wrong—confusing, as many did, a statement made by the U.S. Embassy in Cairo for an official government response to the murder of Americans in Libya. But the truth is that the White House struck the same note of apology, disavowing the offending speech while claiming to protect free speech in principle. It may seem a small detail, given the heat of the moment—but so is a quivering lip.

Our government followed the path of appeasement further by attempting to silence the irrepressible crackpot Pastor Terry Jones, who had left off burning copies of the Qur’an just long enough to promote the film. The administration also requested that Google remove “Innocence of Muslims” from its servers. These maneuvers attest to one of two psychological and diplomatic realities: Either our government is unwilling to address the problem at hand, or the problem is so vast and terrifying that we have decided to placate the barbarians at the gate.

The contagion of moral cowardice followed its usual course, wherein liberal journalists and pundits began to reconsider our most basic freedoms in light of the sadomasochistic fury known as “religious sensitivity” among Muslims. Contributors to The New York Times and NPR spoke of the need to find a balance between free speech and freedom of religion—as though the latter could possibly be infringed by a YouTube video. As predictable as Muslim bullying has become, the moral confusion of secular liberals appears to be part of the same clockwork.While we're at it, here are the Danish cartoons of Mohammed that sparked mob violence by Muslims several years ago.